Future mule steel hopefuls. I would love to see.....

[chuck_roxas45]

Thanks Joe. Now to see if that means anything to me.

[chuck_roxas45]

This stands out to my eyes.

CPM 4V should be considered for applications where a higher attainable hardness and
additional abrasion resistance is required than can be offered by CPM 3V.

Looking very good indeed. High hardness, abrasion resistance, and toughness in a single package. Sounds like a little less tradeoffs.

[kbuzbee]

Yep, I'm in. But honestly I'd prefer a Native 5 to a mule (sorry)

Ken

[The Mastiff]

Yep, I'm in. But honestly I'd prefer a Native 5 to a mule (sorry)

You can't do Jim Ankerson's type tests with a Native 5 but most of us would get more use out of a folder than a fixed blade. It's difficult for me to get much fixed blade time but I always have a folder with me and use it countless times daily.

I like the idea of having an S110V Folder but I hope it's higher hardness than the one I have ( @58-59). It's just a little different than S90V and I'm not even sure I can say it performs better. On the one I have the carbides seem to be bigger than the full hardness Phil Wilson custom and it doesn't take as good edges. I'm not talking about the thinness of the customs edge either.

I seem to recall Vassili referring to it as "sand paper steel". I wouldn't go that far but I do hope some of it's uncanny performance gets tapped into.

Joe

[Ankerson]

You can't do Jim Ankerson's type tests with a Native 5 but most of us would get more use out of a folder than a fixed blade. It's difficult for me to get much fixed blade time but I always have a folder with me and use it countless times daily.

I like the idea of having an S110V Folder but I hope it's higher hardness than the one I have ( @58-59). It's just a little different than S90V and I'm not even sure I can say it performs better. On the one I have the carbides seem to be bigger than the full hardness Phil Wilson custom and it doesn't take as good edges. I'm not talking about the thinness of the customs edge either.

I seem to recall Vassili referring to it as "sand paper steel". I wouldn't go that far but I do hope some of it's uncanny performance gets tapped into.

Joe

Running S110V at 58-59 is like running a stock car with 4 flat tires and a complete waste of the best stainless steel available.

[Ferris Wheels]

Running S110V at 58-59 is like running a stock car with 4 flat tires and a complete waste of the best stainless steel available.

That is a great analogy!

[Cliff Stamp]

Hi Cliff,

What steel would you like to see in a Mule?

sal

Sal,

I would like to see different steels being explored rather than the very high carbide steels which for some reason are tending to dominate the market which have one strength and a large number of downsides. They do well in a narrow range of use, but outside of that have pretty serious downfalls for working knives.

As a few examples of interesting steels :

-19C27

This is Sandvik's response to a request for higher wear resistance in a stainless steel. The carbide volume is increased by simply increasing the carbon content so the chromium carbide volume increases, the aggregate increases and the free chromium decreases. It would be interesting to see :

-if the loss of corrosion resistance is significant, does this actually need to be oiled

-is there a significant loss in edge stability over 13C26 (AEB-L)

The critical thing is that the heat treatment has to be spot on, in particular the retained austenite has to be minimal and the aus-grain has to be minimal. As this steel doesn't have the large volumes of the grain pinners (vanadium, etc.) the austenization has to be very tightly controlled, high temp but very short. Cryo is essential to remove all retained austenite, oil quench is critical to maximize martensite and prevent embrittlement. It should end up 62/63 HRC but the hardness is not what it is important, the micro-structure is the critical factor.

And for something completely different :

-Armox Advanced

This is a steel which is designed to challenge the use of ceramic plates in bullet resistant plating. It has a maximum hardness of 63 HRC and is so tough that it has to be v-notch charpy tested, and it scores high even at - 40 C. It is a very pure, transverse rolled, medium carbon steel which has a high Nickel content and light chromium (mainly for through hardening).

The interesting thing for this would be in applications for larger blades as it would offer very high toughness, excellent grindability, and the ability to take an hold a very fine edge due to the high hardness and low carbide volume. It would however not respond well at all to grinding after HT and it would need to be sharpened with a coolant, high forced air or ideally fluid.

Again, neither one of these is designed, intended, or should even be imagined to compete in long term slicing edge retention at low sharpness levels with the high carbide steels, they are for other aspects of knife performance, but the uses should be obvious.

Back to the high carbide steels, it would be interesting to see what you could do with the current ceramics. The current knife ceramics are :

-coming easily sharp enough to shave
-very thin and acute edges (0.010"/15 dps)

And the difference between ceramics and the high carbide steels is actually far bigger than the difference between the high carbide steels (S110V, etc.) and 420J2.

[Cliff Stamp]

Cliff, it's 350 mesh, 45 micron.

Yes, I know the grit of the coarse DMT stones, my question is will the carbide/steel transition alloys behave more like carbide or more like steels in regards to low grit honing. The steels will easily take an edge which can shave, push cut newsprint off of an x-coarse DMT stone. The ceramics do not as they tend to fracture in the chip lines from the abrasive due to the nature of the material which does not have a high plastic region. However even steels like 10V, while very high carbide, still deform under abrasion and do not simply fracture. The question then is how do the transition materials like 121 REX behave at similar finishes.

[The Mastiff]

Yes, I know the grit of the coarse DMT stones, my question is will the carbide/steel transition alloys behave more like carbide or more like steels in regards to low grit honing. The steels will easily take an edge which can shave, push cut newsprint off of an x-coarse DMT stone. The ceramics do not as they tend to fracture in the chip lines from the abrasive due to the nature of the material which does not have a high plastic region. However even steels like 10V, while very high carbide, still deform under abrasion and do not simply fracture. The question then is how do the transition materials like 121 REX behave at similar finishes

.

Cliff, for sure I'm not the one to answer that. I've never actually held or used a rex 121 knife or tried to sharpen it. A rex 20 ( M62) blade is about the closest. I didn't have that knife all that long to be honest. In my opinion Farid would have the most experience working those steels by far. You might want to try him. There's certainly no point in me speculating.

Joe

[JLS]

One of the main purposes of the Mule Team project for Spyderco, IN MY OPINION, would seem to be gaining production experience, in a sprint run scale, for widely different steel choices. I remember talk that the heat treat did not go as planned on the 52100 since it's not air-quenched like all of Spyderco's other steel, at least up to that point. There have been other unplanned incidents with the project; ZDP-189 and Cruwear come to mind. Thankfully, these problems haven't completely derailed the project.

This project allows them to see what might be interesting to work with and have us, as buyers, at least partially fund the project, though I doubt they're making much money on these knives. They've been made in at least 3 countries (US, Japan and China) and coordinating that can't be much fun or be inexpensive. It also gives us an opportunity to experiment with different steels in the same platform and form some very general opinions. As much as I like the high-carbide volume steels, there is something special about a relatively simple steel like 52100.

It's interesting to see where some of the development from this project has gone. The Super-Blue Caly 3.5 was quite popular and I would imagine it was easier to make money on it due to the experience gained with the Mule. The steel choices definitely show that Spyderco is interested in making a wide variety of knives that utilize different steel in their best capacities. Even the Bushcraft in O1 shows a willingness to do something very different than the mainstream.

I welcome any steel that may come along in this project. Some of them have caused me to stretch a little bit in terms of cost, but they've all been worth it. Then again, the Elmax seemed to be priced quite reasonably considering the alloy content. I plan on having at least one of each.

I don't have any specific requests on steel, just keep them coming!!

[neo]

Hi Neo,

Welcome to the Spyderco forum.

4V already on order.

sal

Thank you Sal

Sorry to come back to this, but did you ordered 4V specific for the mules?
Just want to be sure I get it right
That would be excellent news!!!